


Les Enfants Perdus (The Stolen Children)

by gardnerhill



Series: Cats and Dogs Living Together [8]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Animal Abuse, Cat Sherlock Holmes, Community: watsons_woes, Dog John, Gen, POV Animal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7380028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An immediate sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/883854">Le Nez Sait</a>, from the 2013 July 14 Watson's Woes. A frantic mother and her lost children need one particular cat-and-dog team to help her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Les Enfants Perdus (The Stolen Children)

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2016 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #3, **A cardboard box:** whether it contains human ears or nothing at all, include a cardboard box somewhere in your entry.
> 
> WARNING: References to animal cruelty. One animal death.

Shock stood atop his crate with his tail waving gently – a sure sign that he was angry. _“Madame,_ _nous allons essayer de trouver vos enfants."_ (We will try to recover your pups.)

This last was said to the Poodle bitch who’d come to us for help. She looked at both of us, still baring her teeth a little at the black cat who’d deduced that her pups had been stolen. But she stayed still instead of barking at Shock or trying to chase him; she’d come to us for help.

Shock continued to speak to the Poodle. “ _Quand est-ce que vos enfants disparaissent_?“ (When did your children disappear?)

She looked at me instead of Shock. It was rude, but no doubt it would keep her from giving in to her instinct to bark at or attack a cat. From the careless posture of my partner, I could see that he too understood what she was doing and had no doubt dealt with such clients in the past. “ _Ce matin_.” Stolen away this morning.

My street education from becoming a stray, and living with Shock, had taught me many new things. The thought that a human could or would be so cruel as to deliberately destroy newborn pups only because of their parentage was still incomprehensible to me, but I knew now that it was as true as starvation or bloodloss from tick bites.

 “We have a thread of a chance, army dog.” Shock leaped to the ground. “The humans who would do such a thing are lazy brutes. No time to lose. _Viens avec nous_.” This last to our client. She was coming with us. Of course; if we found any of her pups alive they’d need their mother immediately.

I set my nose to the task in that same moment. I took three seconds to smell the Poodle all over from nose to vulva, to make sure I had both her scent and that of her pups. She’d whelped the night before; her pups were a mix of Poodle and Staffordshire. Pups healthy, mostly, but one smaller one that smelled troubling; she would not survive long away from her mother.

Then I set nose to the ground and was off, on the long hobbling three-legged lope I’d perfected. No doubt Shock and the Poodle were behind me.

My partner Shock is unique, not just for being a quick and clever alley cat but for his tendency to aid other street-beasts with his gifts. He had accurately told me my story at our first meeting (I’d been an Army Medical K-9 Corps assistant, both I and my human had been badly injured, both of us had left the war zone, he’d gone to a human hospital and I’d been left on the street missing one foreleg from that last attack). We shared an alley, whatever food we could scrounge or was left by kind humans, and the work that Shock did in aiding other cats, dogs, even a rat or two with an interesting problem. Shock had often needed my fighting ability to save us from bigger dogs he’d angered with his impertinent comments, or to flee holding his tattered bloody form in my mouth after he’d been injured.

Now I had something to do for which my nose was better than anyone’s – the one thing even Shock said was better than his. Find her pups.

Back down the alley, following her pupping scent, backtracking to her home. A series of crates atop each other, in the human style – flats. Only her scent near the door where she’d left to find us.

Pup-removing – a cruel, sneaky business. They wouldn’t have gone through the front door – other humans would have stopped them. I ran up the sidewalk around the flats and into the back area.

A dog-bed heavy with Poodle scent, blood and afterbirth and all, and _there_ was the scent of each of the pups at last.

No time to lose, Shock said. I caught them all – five pups, two dogs and three bitches, the runt had trouble breathing but the others smelt healthy. Cardboard – they’d been put in a box. The creatures would have taken them to a nearby skip, or down to the river. Let it be the skip, only let it be the skip for these lazy monsters.

“Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!” a neighbor screeched, a Schnauzer.

“Cat! Cat! Cat! Cat! Cat!” another bellowed from another yard – a Staffordshire. His smell told me that he was the sire, and he was not pleased at Shock’s presence.

“I’m looking for your pups!” I snapped without taking my nose from the ground.

“Pups? Not my concern. Cat! Cat! Cat! Cat!”

Silently thanking the human who’d neutered me, I followed the smell of pup and cardboard (and of the human who’d done this horrid thing).

Off, out. Up the street now, tossing aside all the other scents that would distract a dog with a nose not as sharp as mine. Poodles are good scenters, but not as good as my breed, and no doubt our poor client had been distracted by panic and grief – but not too distracted to seek our help immediately instead of wasting time crying for her children. Shock’s reputation was a valuable thing.

The scents divided; the fresher smell of the human thief veered away from the alley. Setting my teeth, I turned my nose away from the brute to find the pup-scent once again. Only the pups mattered right now. Down the alley, one more turn.

Skip. Oh you wonderful, lazy brute of a human. The river had only been a little further away.

“Here! Here! Here! Here!” I barked, and leaped at the closed lid. There, on top of all the rich scents of the garbage and rotting matter and feces, the pup smell. One, two, three, four…and one dead. Poor little girl. But her stronger brothers and sisters still had a chance. “Here! Here! Here!”

Poodle flung herself at the skip lid – she’d been right behind me. “ _Mes enfants! Maman! Je suis Maman_!”

My trick, my special trick… I carefully nosed open the skip half-lid with my nose and my one foreleg. Shock squeezed into the noisome spot as I continued to nudge back the lid until it clanged against the brick wall behind. Poodle scrabbled at the other skip lid in vain, then pealed as Shock emerged from a cardboard box reeking of Poodle’s birth-blood and holding a damp close-eyed pup by the scruff, still trailing a wee umbilicus.

I took the puppy from my partner’s mouth with my own and lowered it to the frantic mother, already flopped on the ground and pushing her teats into place. Poodle started licking the child even before it touched ground and groped blindly for a nipple.

Together my partner and I lifted out each of the four damp, stinking, starving pups to set them at their mother’s side. Moments later the only sounds in the alley were the soft grunts of healthy, ravenous feeding and the wet swiping sounds of Poodle’s tongue over her recovered litter.

“She can’t go back to those brutes, army dog. They’ll only try again.”

Shock’s comment broke me out of my reverie; I’d been watching the feeding pups with my tongue out and my tail wagging, as empty of thought as an Irish Setter. In truth I’d been so pleased at my success and caught up in the happy tableau that I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Shock’s cattish cool-headedness about sentiment was a valuable gift at times.

I made myself turn my back on the lovely sight so I could confer with my partner, now seated atop a dustbin lid and grooming himself to get rid of the birth-stink and garbage smell. “You’re right – they’ll try to kill the rest of her pups again.” I thought of that fresh human scent and turned my mind and nose away. No, humans must deal with humans. “Could we lead them to a shelter? She’s a healthy bitch and can find a new home far from here, and so will her pups when they’re weaned.”

Shock held his tail still with both paws for cleaning. “The people who threw away her pups for not being pure Poodle will want her back. This is not her first litter. Her owners will be looking for her, because they make money off her, and would start by looking in the shelters. Her pups can go to a shelter when they are older, but in the meantime she must hide away with them until they are big enough. After that she must decide if she will go back to her owners.”

I remembered how timid Poodle had been, venturing into our alley; she was a well-trained pet, and would resist both stray living and being disloyal to her owners even after this cruelty. “I don’t think she could live as a stray. I had a rough time at first, and I didn’t have pups to feed.”

“There is another way, army dog.” Shock threw his head back and yowled, with a waver in the middle of the call. Moments later other cat-calls responded, with the same waver. Further still, that waver-call was repeated. I had heard Shock communicate with his network of fellow strays before, but this method of passing messages back and forth never ceased to amaze me. Poodle bared her teeth at all the cat-sounds, but kept grooming her puppies.

“Another way? Not a shelter, not the streets.” I thought, hard, while Shock groomed himself and looked at me with amusement at my slowness. Shock would often say _Throw out everything that doesn’t make sense, and that’s the answer._ What didn’t make sense? The Poodle and her pups could not fly away, nor hide underground. She couldn’t stay in an alley – she couldn’t go far because of her pups and she’d be found soon, out of place among the strays. Not a shelter. She needed home, warmth, and regular meals to keep feeding her pups, more regular than the ones we got even with the kindness of the animal-loving humans who left us food…

That was it. One of our animal-loving humans would give Poodle and her pups a good home as long as needed. And they hated animal-hurting humans more than we did – they’d recognize the signs of cruel treatment and hide Poodle away from her owners.

So that’s what Shock’s message had been about just now. One of the stray cats or dogs would lead a good human to this alley so they could save Poodle and her litter.

“Well done. You understand now.” The black cat cleaned a back leg with long swipes of his tongue.

My partner’s smirk meant I didn’t need to tell him I’d figured it out. But I didn’t care this time; I was too happy at having solved the mystery, almost happier than helping to save the puppies.

Shock twisted nearly in a knot to lick a spot on his own back. “You’ll never disguise your own feelings as long as you keep thumping that ridiculous tail, Johnny.” His light tone – and using my name instead of “army dog” – was his own proof that he was happy at this outcome, not so much for helping dogs but for confounding bad humans.

I approached Poodle’s head and waited till she turned away from her blissful regard of her children, to let her know of the plans. She gave my head a grooming almost as fierce as her pup-licks. “ _Merci, ange chien_!”

“ _Et ange chat._ ”

“ _Bouf_.” She returned her attention to her litter, indifferent that the “angel dog” she’d thanked worked with an angel cat.

When I returned to the dustbin, my partner was shaking one last paw dry with his tongue lolling; it had taken him a long and tiring grooming session to remove the last of the skip stink. “So we stay here until help arrives. I’m hungry. Could you go back into the skip and find me something?”

I grinned, tongue lolling, as Shock hackled and hissed at his dog partner. All was right with our world once again.


End file.
